Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, there are necessary provisions in the Bill but there is also window dressing. While we all deplore assaults on shop workers, we do not need this new measure. There are good laws of theft, robbery and assault. What we lack are the resources to arrest and prosecute. Last night, the Metropolitan Police announced that London will be left with just two police stations with front counters operating 24 hours a day—10 more are set to close under cost-cutting measures. That is not good enough.

Today’s Times reports that family drug and alcohol courts face closure, yet each such court case saves local authorities £58,000 in care costs and £15,000 in legal costs. Instead of chasing headlines, the Government should be funding the police, the CPS, those on legal aid and the courts properly. The Ministry of Justice has been starved of money by the previous Government—I accept that—and it is not being helped by the current one.

Clause 39 is well intentioned. It will show shoplifters who regularly steal low-value goods that this may be treated as a serious offence, triable in the Crown Court. But it is really important that only the prosecutor and not the defendant can go on to elect a Crown Court trial. If not, our Crown Courts will be overwhelmed. Backlogs are already years long.

I welcome the measures in Part 8, which are directed at electronic devices to steal cars. These are necessary and overdue. The measures to address so-called SIM farms are also to be welcomed.

I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said about the changes proposed under Clause 82 to the law of limitation. These are unnecessary and will be unhelpful.

Finally, I turn to Clause 191—the decriminalisation of abortion. I make it plain that I am not in principle opposed to abortion, but there was no prior scrutiny of, or public consultation on, this. The intention, which I accept is benign, of not criminalising a woman who aborts her own child risks new evils. Without the safeguards of the current law, women may be harassed into abortion, and a woman will be permitted, without medical advice, to abort a baby right up to due birth date. Just think about that; on any measure, it is a human being at that stage. What if the baby survives but is damaged? Will they sue the mother?

I agree with what my noble friend Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell has had to say about this provision. We must look at it very carefully. Such an important change to the law regarding human life should be based on proper inquiry and evidence, and then, if necessary and appropriate, made through measured change in measured circumstances to the Abortion Act 1967.

To wind up, 240 seconds to debate 400 pages is not very much. We must be allocated proper time in Committee. It is likely that more baubles will be added to the Christmas tree.